Ads for American Airlines Seek ‘Great’ Results

Years before the phrase “American exceptionalism” became a staple of foreign policy debates, American Airlines proclaimed its exceptionalism in ads with themes like “Something special in the air” and “We’re American Airlines. Doing what we do best." Now, when many passengers would be skeptical of American — or any airline — declaring how wonderful it is, a campaign acknowledges that superiority is a destination to which American is still flying.

The theme of the new American campaign, “Going for great,” says it all: not great yet, but striving for greatness. The theme invokes a goal voiced many times by W. Douglas Parker, chief executive of the American parent, the American Airlines Group, of restoring American to greatness.

“Going for great” also echoes a theme used in ads for Pan American World Airways, “Pan Am makes the going great,” but whereas Pan American asserted it was already great, American is asking consumers to come along on its journey to greatness.

The American campaign has been running since last month in three major markets — Chicago, Los Angeles and New York — and is getting underway in Atlanta. The campaign is scheduled to run through mid-December.

The ads promote improvements that American plans to make in coming months as well as changes the airline has already made, among them offering lie-flat seats in first class and business class on every flight between New York and three cities (London, Los Angeles and San Francisco) and between Los Angeles and two cities (London and New York).

The campaign is aimed at what American calls its high-value customers; they fly a lot and buy a lot of first-class and business-class tickets. The campaign is composed of print, digital and outdoor ads along with video clips and rich-media ads appearing on desktop and laptop computers as well as smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

The campaign is being produced by agencies that are part of the McCann Worldgroup, which is a division of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Other recent campaigns they produced for American included one focused on transcontinental service on new Airbus A321 aircraft and one that used Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” as the voice-over narrator of commercials introducing the airline’s new logo and brand identity.

“Going for great” addresses “the great progress we’ve made” since the merger of American Airlines and US Airways, says Fernand Fernandez, who in December became vice president for global marketing of American in Fort Worth, Tex., after overseeing marketing for US Airways.

The theme also “alludes to the fact we’ve only just started” on the road to greatness, he adds, and that “we’re not necessarily there.”

The improvements the campaign shines a spotlight on include new aircraft, says Mr. Fernandez, who goes by Fern, adding that American “is taking delivery of one new airplane every week.”

The ads also describe “the ways we help our customers stay entertained and productive,” he says, like Wi-Fi, onboard entertainment and those lie-flat seats.

The campaign is being concentrated in the three big markets for a number of reasons, Mr. Fernandez says. One reason is that the Los Angeles and New York markets are “highly fragmented and highly competitive,” he adds, and “we want to make sure we have a share of voice.”

Also, “our product is as good as, and in many cases, better” than the offerings of rivals like JetBlue Airways that offer competing transcontinental service, he says.

The Chicago market is a priority, Mr. Fernandez says, because it is “a unique market” in that “two large global airlines” each have a hub at O’Hare International Airport, American and United Airlines.

A challenge in concentrating the campaign in those markets, Mr. Fernandez says, is how cluttered they are with advertising messages, making “breaking through” hard to do.

One way to accomplish that, says Jennifer L. Adams, managing director for integrated marketing at American, is to produce “localized creative” content that would “show we are in tune with those important markets” and “hit home” with the intended target audience.

So the ads for the Chicago market carry headlines like “From Second City to almost any city,” “O’Yeah” and “Da partures,” the latter a play on the “Saturday Night Live” skits about the fanatical Chicago sports fans who root for “Da Bears.”

The ads for the Los Angeles market carry headlines like “ReLAX to New York and London,” invoking the airline code for the Los Angeles airport; “L.A.'s newest star makes its debut in the sky,” referring to the new aircraft American is adding to its fleet; and “Spoiler alert: This is gonna be great,” using the phrase that warns fans of television shows and movies that plot points are about to be revealed.

And the ads for the New York market carry headlines like “Relax your New York state of mind”; “Catch a flight every 10 New York minutes”; “From the Big Apple to Beantown”; and “Take a flight outta the Big Apple.”

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An ad for the Los Angeles market. The campaign, produced by agencies that are part of the McCann Worldgroup, is aimed at what American calls its high-value customers, who fly a lot and buy first-class and business-class tickets.

There are also ad headlines that quote lyrics from the song “New York, New York.” One is “Start spreading the news” and the other, for the lie-flat seats, is “Dear city that never sleeps: Challenge accepted.”

The tone of the campaign is “very conversational,” says April Steinbach, a vice president and creative director at TM Advertising in Dallas, part of the McCann Worldgroup, to encourage a conversation between American and current or potential customers.

In the ads, American is saying, “'We’re going for great and we want you to come along with us'” in what is “a never-ending journey,” she adds, which is signaled by lines in some ads like “Hold on. This is gonna be great.” (“Hold on” is probably a better phrase to use in airline ads than “Fasten your seatbelts.”)

The theme, Ms. Steinbach says, originated in conversations that she had with her agency partner, Stephanie Fisher, a creative director, about “how there’s a great story in American’s making improvements every day.”

A thought about “Going for it, every day” led to “Going for great,” Ms. Steinbach recalls, and one reason it resonates as a theme is because “it’s something we’re all trying to do: You do what you can to be better than you were yesterday.”

Ms. Fisher says she enjoys working on the campaign because it is not about “a cosmetic change” but is instead more substantial and affects consumers “in a positive way.”

“It’s real, tangible things you’ll feel on your next flight,” she adds, “and it comes from a real place internally,” referring to Mr. Parker’s promises to return American to its place of greatness in the air.

The print ads are appearing in publications that include The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal.

Although there are no plans to run the videos as television commercials, the clips will appear on the websites of ABC, CBS and NBC television stations in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

One video, “Places We Go,” offers a running tally of the “nearly 1,000” destinations to which American flies “in over 150 countries” (a total that takes into account the airline’s membership in the Oneworld consortium).

All those choices are “one more way we’re going for great at American,” an announcer says.

The other video, “Side Effects,” spoofs commercials for prescription drugs that offer warnings about side effects.

The clip begins with a woman seeming to fall asleep. “Side effects may include drowsiness, heavy eyes and involuntary smiling,” the announcer says as the camera reveals the woman is in a lie-flat seat on American.

The seating is “one more way we’re going for great at American,” the announcer concludes.

The “Going for great” theme serves as “foreshadowing,” Ms. Adams says, for what American has planned for its marketing efforts in 2015 as more improvements in the fleet and onboard service are introduced.

As for spending on the campaign, Ms. Adams and Mr. Fernandez say it is a bit difficult to quantify because of the significant differences in media choices between the “Going for great” effort and other recent campaigns.

For instance, the other campaigns included television commercials and the “Going for great” campaign does not, and some other campaigns appeared nationally while the “Going for great” ads are only regional.

Data from Kantar Media, a division of WPP, gives a glimpse of American’s ad spending patterns in the three markets. For instance, in 2013, when American spent a total of $50.8 million nationally on ads, $2.4 million was spent in the Chicago market, $2.4 million was spent in the Los Angeles market and $3.5 million was spent in the New York market.

In 2012, when American spent a total of $36.3 million nationally, Kantar Media reported, $967,000 was spent in Chicago, $170,000 in Los Angeles and $1 million in New York.

In 2011, when American spent $68.8 million nationally, according to Kantar Media, $1.6 million was spent in Chicago, $4.2 million in Los Angeles and $3.8 million in New York.

And in 2010, when American spent $56.8 million nationally, Kantar Media reported, $3.9 million was spent in Chicago, $750,000 in Los Angeles and $5.7 million in New York.

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